Should salary negotiations be banned?

WHAT’S one way that could solve the growing wage gap between men and women? CEO Ellen Pao thinks she has the answer in banning salary negotiations.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - MARCH 25: Ellen Pao leaves the San Francisco Superior Court Civic Center Courthouse with her legal team during a lunch break from her trial on March 25, 2015 in San Francisco, California. Reddit interim CEO Ellen Pao is suing her former employer, Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers, for $16 million alleging she was sexually harassed by male officials. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/AFP == FOR NEWSPAPERS, INTERNET, TELCOS & TELEVISION USE ONLY ==

HERE’S one way that could solve the growing wage gap between men and women: no negotiating on salaries.

It’s well known that women don’t do as well out of salary negotiations as men, which has led to many, including the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) to posit that this is contributing to women being paid less than their male counterparts.

A paper from the WGEA said that women are less likely to enter into negotiations, tend to ask for less and are more likely to accept an initial offer. And negotiating has traditionally been associated with more masculine behaviour, no matter how archaic that attitude may be.

Based on that, Reddit chief executive Ellen Pao, fresh from a gender discrimination lawsuit against her former employers, announced that she will do away with salary negotiations at her company.

She told the Wall Street Journal: “Men negotiate harder than women do and sometimes women get penalised when they do negotiate. So as part of our recruiting process we don’t negotiate with candidates. We come up with an offer that we think is fair.

Reddit chief exec Ellen Pao has banned negotiations.

“If you want more equity, we’ll let you swap a little bit of your cash salary for equity, but we aren’t going to reward people who are better negotiators with more compensation. We ask people what they think about diversity, and we did weed people out because of that.”

A Yahoo article pointed to a 2006 study from Carnegie Mellon University that found men and women are less likely to want to work with a woman who negotiates. The opposite held true for when men negotiate – they are respected for their negotiation skills.

Ms Pao’s name has been in the headlines in recent weeks over her high-profile lawsuit against her former employers Kleiner Perkins, a Californian venture capital firm. She alleged she was passed over for promotional opportunities because of her gender.

She ultimately lost the legal action when the jury voted nine-three against her but her case has been a lightning rod in an industry that is dominated by men. It’s also highlighted the often subtle forms of sexism women can experience in the workplace, the ones that are harder to prove in court.

What do you think? Should we ban salary negotiations? Let us know in the comments below.